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Post by Soccerhouse on Apr 11, 2016 10:38:43 GMT -5
Great listen!! --- What happens when you put a microphone in front of a Premier League coach, a venture capitalist, an American soccer writer and let loose the topic of what is going on with US Soccer? The answer is this mega-podcast with Omar Saleem, founder and editor of These Football Times and Premier League coach, Robert Wilson of Gaia Labs, a venture capital firm, and Jon Townsend who writes for TFT and farpostfooty.com, as well as being a board member for Year Zero Soccer. Mr. Wilson lives in Rio in Brazil, Mr Saleem in London, and Jon in St Louis, a truly international roundtable. "the kids that made it in spite of the system, or their family had enough money to keep pumping dollars into top teams/top training or they were the benefactors of a scholarship or someone funded their journey....America Soccer will continue to struggle as long as pay to play is filtering out these players that we've been talking about, we are looking at system that is so expensive, so elitest, that the decisions are football ones, can I my bills, put food on the table, put gas in the car or does my son or daughter go play more and then we put them in a college system with a tuition rate that continues to increase" soundcloud.com/yearzerosoccer/year-zero-roundtable-us-soccer-with-omar-saleem-robert-wilson-and-jon-townsendIf you only listen to one thing, and one thing only turn on about the minute 46 mark and listen to the comment! --Some of the discussion is about Jon Townsend's article -- The Fermi Paradox of American Soccer thesefootballtimes.co/2016/04/01/the-fermi-paradox-of-american-soccer/
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Post by rifle on Apr 11, 2016 18:36:00 GMT -5
46th minute comment was laser focused. Amen
Thanks for the link. Will listen to the whole thing soon.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Apr 12, 2016 7:17:45 GMT -5
The first hour is a must, gets a little long, but if you have time to kill (commute, background noise etc) -- its worth listening to it all.
(they do not offer solutions to the problems)
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Post by zizou on Apr 12, 2016 10:45:23 GMT -5
Interesting and definitely a worthwhile listen. Multiple important topics mentioned. I just want to highlight two of them. First, conspiracy theories generally do not move me. But, in this case, there is just too much evidence that MLS and USSF are colluding in a way that worsens the soccer, youth development, and the overall soccer experience in the USA. They don't care because they have a short sighted plan to make money for a few people on the backs of the masses. The bit about differences in talent ID investment was shocking. Second, sure pay to play is bad. But nothing is free. Fields, coaching, kits, administration, travel, referees. How are clubs supposed to break this cycle under our current system?
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Post by Soccerhouse on Apr 12, 2016 11:03:28 GMT -5
zizou I tweeted a similar comment back to them that they need to have a podcast to discuss the solutions to the problems they discuss. here is a map of England compared to Georgia in Size - thats ~ 20 top tier clubs in an area the size of Georgia Investing millions in youth development. Yes we could figure a way to reduce fees for sure, and stop the tournament exchange system, but you still need to pay coaches, get fields, administration, travel and refs. Think of the difference in England they are spending probably upwards of numbers greater than 25 million a year on youth development and here in Georgia we are paying over 10 - 20 million a year (total guess) here is another example of Swansea and their youth investment www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/2015-16/apr/050416-peter-lansley-swansea-city-academy-investment.html
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Post by jash on Apr 12, 2016 14:03:21 GMT -5
Until the sport of soccer brings in HUGE sponsorship dollars in the US like it does in England, there is no money to support these magical non-pay-to-play clubs. Where do these guys think the money comes from? The government?
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mark
Jr. Academy
Posts: 62
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Post by mark on Apr 12, 2016 15:39:05 GMT -5
It will not come from sponsorships, it will come from professional clubs. But, it won't happen the way that MLS is set up now.
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Post by jash on Apr 12, 2016 15:46:06 GMT -5
It will not come from sponsorships, it will come from professional clubs. But, it won't happen the way that MLS is set up now. Yes, but THAT money doesn't come from ticket sales... or beer. The big bucks come from the big sponsorships. And TV deals (which comes from sponsorships/advertising).
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Post by rifle on Apr 12, 2016 16:18:20 GMT -5
FIFA has a structure to compensate clubs that train players who sign professional contracts. There needs to be more outrage to the FACT that MLS has conspires with USSF to steal that money.
Money that potentially could reduce cost to play. For me, minute 46 in the above linked podcast just hammers the point home that American soccer enthusiasts are being screwed..
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Post by Soccerhouse on Apr 12, 2016 17:35:15 GMT -5
Yea forgot about solidarity payments - that could be a huge difference maker.
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mark
Jr. Academy
Posts: 62
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Post by mark on Apr 13, 2016 7:44:57 GMT -5
You can't have solidarity payments if the player/parents paid for training. If there is a payment, then parents are due 100% refund of what they put in. Solidarity payment structure with no pay to play would make clubs actually have to develop players. Are they ready for that?
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Post by zizou on Apr 13, 2016 8:35:19 GMT -5
You can't have solidarity payments if the player/parents paid for training. If there is a payment, then parents are due 100% refund of what they put in. Solidarity payment structure with no pay to play would make clubs actually have to develop players. Are they ready for that? This is what I mentioned a few days ago. This is a chicken-egg problem. Yes, the parents are paying now, but they are paying now because the current structure prohibits a model were clubs gets remuneration for their development of players. How that would change would be tricky. I am delighted with the way our club is working with kids. They are committed to development. They want to teach the kids to win, which is important, but they are not obsessed with winning. And the parents are the same. So I say yes for some clubs anyway. I was wondering about full funding options. Could a club cut a uniform deal with, for instance, Under Armour, then require that players/parents must wear only Under Armour gear (shoes, jackets, etc) at the club. Then Under Armour would provide sponsorship money. There would be signage all over the place. Would Under Armour make enough from sales off of such an arrangement that they could provide a large enough sponsorship contribution to fully fund the top teams?
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Post by Soccerhouse on Apr 13, 2016 8:42:25 GMT -5
I think you would have to be a huge club for Under Armour/Nike/Adidas to see the benefit of that relationship. Right now those apparel companies "sponsor" clubs by providing access to certain privileges - ID Camps, coaching support, tournament winner trips, education for staff etc and they claim preferred access to top youth soccer tournaments (Surf Cup, Dallas Cup, Jefferson Cup etc).
Clubs get $5,000 to $30,000 to outfit coaches and staff with shoes and club apparel. Clubs also I think get 10% of uniform sales and sometimes XX% of of all club sponsored apparel bought from local shops.
Hell we don't even really get discounted uniforms, we pay premium prices for the gear.....
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